ITunes Match goes live today

[Towen7]

The service is $24.99 a year.

To access iTunes Match, click on the new “iTunes Match” icon in the “Store” sidebar. If you don’t see iTunes Match, select, “Store” and “Turn On iTunes Match” from the main iTunes menu. Right now, Apple’s servers are reporting overwhelming demand for the service and the company advises users try again in an hour.
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[mzpro5]

Thanks. I've been waiting for this. I'll try it in the morning when I get up.

 

[Haywood]

I recently transcoded my WMAL files to Apple Lossless specifically to take advantage of this service for my portable music needs. As soon as I clean up all the track tags that got screwed up and verify that everything is there and correct, I'm going to do this.

 

[Yesfan70]

"The service allows users to upload up to 25,000 non-iTunes songs to Apple’s servers for easy access from up to 10 computers and iOS devices."

Not trying to be pessimistic or a hater, but a 25,000 song capacity seems a bit broad since songs differ in the amount of time (3 minute pop single compared to a 20 minute track from Yes for example). Seems a storage capacity rating would be more exact. Is there a true limit to uploads?

 

[Towen7]

Remember that your not storing anything (or much anyway) that isn't already on their servers. They are simply acknowleding that you own a copy and can DL it to your other devices. The music is already on iTunes so it's space already used. There is only one copy of that 20 minute Yes track, so even if 100 million people match it, it's only on the server one time. Its only in the cases when they can't find an itunes match that you are storing anything unique. I'm sure that'll happen but in relatively small numbers.

 

[Yesfan70]

That didn't even dawn on me. Thanks for the info.

 

[mzpro5]

You have to upgrade to the latest version of iTunes (10.5.1.42) in order to get iTunes Match.

I'm gonna wait a day or two until I catch some initial reviews before trying it.

 

[hawk52]

I Agree. I'll wait. I still have not updated to the new v of IOS...

 

[-B-]

So, if I'm getting this right, iTunes will see the "rental" music I have on my PC from the Zune Pass and assume I own it and make it available on my iDevices?

 

[Towen7]

I think the DRM on the rented music will prevent it from being matched.

 

[mzpro5]

I think the DRM on the rented music will prevent it from being matched.

Is you Zune stuff in your iTunes library? It checks only against the iTunes library on your computer not all the music on your computer so if it is not in iTunes it will not " match" it.

I said I was gonna wait but I went ahead and got it last night.

I had 8600 songs in my iTunes library. The initial match process took about 2.5 hours and matched about 7300 of the songs which are now in the " iCloud" and I can listen to on my iPad.

It then started to upload the remaining 1300 songs. I let it run overnight and after 8 hours there are still about 500 songs to go.

 

[mzpro5]

Everything is loaded. Took 15 hours to upload the 1300 songs that didn't match. Have a total of about 8500 songs in the iCloud now.

Here is a pretty good article on Match

iTunes Match